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How To Handle Raw Meat in Restaurants, Supermarkets & Our Kitchen?
How To Handle Raw Meat in Restaurants, Supermarkets & Our Kitchen?
3 Mar 2023
Disclaimer
I didn't know that raw meat handling was so tricky! FDA guidelines for raw meat handling opened my eyes, and then Dr Greger's videos convinced me that it's tough to avoid infections from raw meat at kitchen. What could be possible outcomes of such infections? See Urinary Tract Infections.
FDA Guidelines For Raw Meat

Meat, Poultry & Seafood - Food Safety for Moms to Be (2018) by FDA explains:

Your first steps in food safety are..

Wash hands thoroughly with warm water and soap before and after handling raw meat, poultry, and seafood.

Wash cutting boards, dishes, and utensils (including knives), and countertops with soap and hot water after they come in contact with raw meat, poultry or seafood.

The same article continues:

Sanitize It!

Kitchen countertops that come in contact with raw meat, poultry, and seafood can be sanitized using a kitchen sanitizer. One teaspoon of liquid chlorine bleach per quart of clean water can also be used to sanitize surfaces. Leave the bleach solution on the surface for about 10 minutes to be effective.

A key guideline is to separate raw meat from other foods!

S-E-P-A-R-A-T-E

Improper handling of raw meat, poultry, and seafood can set the stage for cross-contamination - the spread of bacteria from foods, hands, utensils, and food preparation surfaces to another food. Here's how to stop it:

  • Separate raw meat, poultry, and seafood from ready-to-eat foods in your grocery shopping cart, refrigerator, and while preparing and handling foods at home. Also, consider placing these raw foods inside plastic bags in your grocery shopping cart to keep the juices contained.
  • To prevent juices from raw meat, poultry, or seafood from dripping onto other foods in the refrigerator, place these raw foods in sealed containers or sealable plastic bags.
  • If possible, use one cutting board for raw meat, poultry, and seafood and another one for fresh fruits and vegetables. If two cutting boards aren't available, prepare fruits and vegetables first, and put them safely out of the way. Wash the cutting board thoroughly with soap and hot water. Then, prepare the raw meat, poultry, or seafood. Follow by washing the cutting board again.
  • Marinades used on raw meat, poultry, or seafood can contain harmful bacteria. Don't reuse these marinades on cooked foods - unless you boil them before applying.
  • Never taste uncooked marinade or sauce that was used to marinate raw meat, poultry, or seafood.
  • Place cooked food on a clean plate for serving. If cooked food is placed on an unwashed plate that previously held raw meat, poultry, or seafood, bacteria from the raw food could contaminate the cooked food.
I was blown away by FDA guidelines outlined above! Handling raw chicken requires a LOT of care! We need to diligently keep it 'quarantined' in containers so that its juices don't leak when we ship it from supermarket to our refrigerators. We should diligently wash our hands and any surface (countertops and cutting boards and plates and containers) that touched raw meat. FDA actually suggests two separate cutting boards at home: one for raw meat, another for plant foods like fruits and vegetables. Why do we have to take so many precautions when handling raw meat? Because raw meat has so many pathogens!

How many people follow raw meat handling guidelines as outlined by FDA? How many people are even aware that such guidelines exist? In videos below, Dr Greger outlines studies done in restaurants, shopping malls and home kitchens with respect to cleanliness, especially when it comes to raw meat handling.

How To Cook Chicken Carefully In Our Kitchen?

Articles by Dr Greger:

  • (2014) How Avoiding Chicken Could Prevent Bladder Infections. An insightful excerpt from this article summarizes a study done in home kitchens:

    What if we’re really careful in the kitchen, though? The pivotal study in this area was entitled “The Effectiveness of Hygiene Procedures for Prevention of Cross-Contamination from Chicken Carcasses in the Domestic Kitchen.”

    Researchers went into five dozen homes, gave each family a chicken, and asked them to cook it. I expected to read that they inoculated the carcass with a specific number of bacteria to ensure everyone got a contaminated bird, but no. They realized that fecal contamination of chicken carcasses was so common that they just went to the store and bought any random chicken.

    After the participants were done cooking it, there was bacteria from chicken feces (Salmonella and Campylobacter–both serious human pathogens) all over the kitchen—on the cutting board, the utensils, on their hands, on the fridge handle, on the cupboard,  the oven handle doorknob. Obviously people don’t know what proper handling and disinfection protocols entail.

    So the researchers took another group of people and gave them specific instructions. After they cooked the chicken they had to wash everything with hot water and detergent. They were told specifically to wash the cutting board, knobs on the sink, the faucet, the fridge, the doorknobs—everything. And the researchers still found pathogenic fecal bacteria all over.

    Fine. Last group. This time they were going to insist that people bleach everything. The dishcloth used to wipe up was to be immersed in bleach disinfectant. Then they sprayed the bleach on all kitchen surfaces and let it sit there for 5 minutes. And… they still found Campylobacter and Salmonella on some utensils, a dishcloth, the counter around the sink, and the cupboard. Definitely better, but unless our kitchen is like some biohazard lab, the only way to guarantee we’re not going to leave infection around the kitchen is to not bring it into the house in the first place.

Videos by Dr Greger:

(2018) How to Shop for, Handle, & Store Chicken

(6 mins) Transcript. Dr Greger's summary: "Poultry is the most common cause of serious food-poisoning outbreaks, followed by fish, then beef. But aren't people more likely to order their burgers rarer than their chicken sandwiches? The primary location where outbreaks occur is the home, not restaurants."

(2012) Food-Poisoning Bacteria Cross-Contamination

(3 mins) Transcript. Dr Greger's summary: "The food-poisoning fecal bacteria found in 70% of U.S. retail poultry is destroyed by proper cooking, but contamination of the kitchen environment may place consumers at risk."

Restaurant & Supermarkets

How sanitary are workers in restaurants? Can we pick up infections from shopping carts?

Articles by Dr Greger:

Videos by Dr Greger:

(2012) Meat-Borne Infection Risk from Shopping Carts

(1 min) Transcript. Dr Greger's summary: "Exposure to meat packaging in the supermarket may lead to food poisoning in children placed in shopping carts."

(2009) Restaurant Worker Hand Washing

(2 mins) Transcript. Dr Greger's summary: "What percentage of restaurant workers comply with the federal Food Code guidelines for hand washing?"

(2012) Hand Washing Compliance of Retail Deli Workers

(2 mins) Transcript. Dr Greger's summary: "How often do retail deli workers wash their hands, at both independent and chain stores? This is important, given the potential for life-threatening blood-borne viruses such as hepatitis C."

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